FIRST RESULTS OBTAINED BY USING A FAST AND SIMPLE DIAGNOSTIC KIT FOR HLB CAUSAL AGENT DETECTION

STOLOWICZ FABIANA; PARMA YANIL; LAROCCA LUCIANA; MARANO MR

Foz de Iguazu

Congreso; International Citrus Congress; 2016

Huanglongbing (HLB), the most devastating diseaseaffecting citrus trees, is caused by the bacterium CandidatusLiberibacter and it?s transmitted by the insect vectorDiaphorina citri. HLB has been reported in the US, EastAsian countries and Brazil. This disease is still not foundedin Argentina, but the presence of the vector insect make theHLB an important challenge for Argentinian citrus producers.Recently, the SENASA (Argentinian National Health Serviceand Food Quality) declared, by Resolution 959/2009,phytosanitary emergency with respect to HLB, in Argentiniancitrus area. Here, we presented the first results obtainedusing a new prototype of a kit for fast and simple diagnosisbased on the isothermal amplification of a specific gene ofthe bacteria. We assayed several potential positive and negativeD. citri samples from Brazil and Argentina. Our resultsshowed that all, except one, of the analyzed insect fromBrazil were infected, but none of the Argentina. We concludedthat the developed kit, that does not require highlysophisticated equipment, will be an important tool to facilitatethe analysis of all potentially infected insect vector todetect the causative agent of the disease in field.Financial support: ANPCyT-Argentina, FONARSEC andMINCyT.Keywords: HLB; diagnostic; Diaphorina citri.